


peacemaker

by streetsamurai



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Evil Uchiha Itachi, Gen, Guilt, Mental Instability, Minato's family is Kushina him and their three sons: Ramen White Wolf and Traumatised Julius Caesar, Non-Chronological, Ocular Fixation, Team as Family and Family as Team, Uchiha Itachi-centric, Uchiha Sasuke-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26396332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetsamurai/pseuds/streetsamurai
Summary: OG/villain itachi auNo Kaguya, no Madara, Obito’s dead, Naruto’s born with no complications, Kurama stays sealed within Kushina. Itachi massacres the Uchiha clan as a testament to his power, and spares Sasuke as his audience.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Namikaze Minato & Uzumaki Kushina & Uzumaki Naruto & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Shisui
Comments: 13
Kudos: 37





	1. three

1

Naruto wakes up groggy and tired. The sky is a dark shade of blue, not a hint of the dawn on the horizon yet. Twisting and turning in bed for a few minutes, he decides he can’t go back to sleep, not with the soft murmurs reaching him from the hall.

He recognises the voices as his parents’. They don’t usually sound like that, even late at night, and Naruto gets to his feet to investigate. He creeps to the door out of his bedroom and opens it, slowly but not thoughtlessly. It doesn’t creak, and he peeks into the quiet commotion in the corridor.

Breath catches in his throat. He forgets to hold onto the door and it opens further on its own accord, but Naruto’s too surprised to worry about being noticed. He stares at his classmate, Uchiha Sasuke, in Uzumaki Kushina’s embrace. Okaa-san’s bright red hair spills onto Sasuke’s shoulders. In a moment, she lets Sasuke go to sit back and hold him by his shoulders.

Her lips are moving, but Naruto can’t make out the words. He doesn’t have the time to start to wonder. Kakashi appears between them, and it’s all Naruto can do to not jump or yelp in surprise.

“Kakashi-nii-san, you’re always so fast!” he whispers ecstatically. Perhaps not the best time to be loud, so Naruto isn’t. Still, he’s curious, and if he’s very, very honest with himself, a bit frightened. From the glimpse he’s caught, something must have happened to Sasuke. Why else would okaa-san be hugging him?

“It’s late, Naruto,” Kakashi tells him and forces the door closed. Naruto’s about to protest, before he realises Kakashi steps into the room with him. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I woke up,” he says gingerly. The atmosphere is setting him off. Kakashi or tou-san and okaa-san would always let him sleep with them if he was feeling lonely. Tonight’s different, and Naruto tries hard to figure out why. The only thing he can come up with, though, “Is something wrong?”

“Yes—but no,” Kakashi jumps to reply. “Something’s happened, it’s not.. nothing serious, it’s— but it’s—“

Kakashi’s face seems paler than normal, almost moon-like white in the light of it in the sky. His eyes are focused on the window, and Naruto whips around to see if someone’s there. Maybe they’re at fault of what’s going on. But it’s empty, save for the unlikely crew of small plant pots with their dwellers in them. After a full minute of silence, Naruto tugs at Kakashi’s sleeve. “Kakashi-nii-san. You’re scaring me.”

Kakashi blinks, then blinks again and rubs his left eye. Naruto’s eyes widen in surprise; the red eye is uncovered, and it never is! Not outside of training with otou-san! “Kakashi-nii-san—“

“G, g-go back to bed, right now, Naruto.” With that, Kakashi vanishes. A clone, then.

Looking around, Naruto doesn’t see a trace of him, and dares another peak.

The hall is empty.

2

He’s afraid of Naruto. Perhaps saying he’s _cautious_ would be more fair, but that’d also be a lie. Sasuke is afraid, which is still better than being terrified.

What he’s terrified of, is being left alone.

For better or worse, he never is.

Hokage-sama finds him. From the sounds of it, the others were busy checking the slaughtered bodies, and Naruto’s father’s the first to reach him in Sasuke’s family’s home. He’d been lying there for the whole eternity or maybe a few seconds. After the memories h— _h—he m_ ade him relive, Sasuke wasn’t aware of the passage of time.

He wasn’t aware of being brought to the Hokage’s home, or how he ended up in the hospital with a bunch of nurses and what Sasuke is pretty confident now were ANBU’s Torture and Interrogation agents.

He hasn’t been reflective of that back then, but he sure does have too much awareness and thoughts now.

Sasuke can’t go back too much, though. It’s like a mental wall he’s put up himself, and every time he reaches it, he’d find himself losing time and coming to hands around him and red, red redr _edred—p_ ink, fiery but kind hair in his face, Naruto’s okaa-san whispering words of peace in his ears. He’s pretty sure she does something else with her gentle, warm chakra washing over his body and taking him from the clutches of that night.

He yelled and screamed at them a few times, at Naruto’s mom and the Hokage and the medics; he’s stopped, now, not sure why he hadn’t in the first place.

Naruto’s house is nice. It’s a bit claustrophobic, and Sasuke finds himself wanting to get out get out get ou-outside get away, and then he’ll bump into Naruto and land on his backside, and the momentarily relief of having the brash but frien _dly he’s safe right?_ classmate there washes away. Dread’d settle in the pit of his stomach.

Sasuke close to vomits every time. The sensation of _safe in his presence_ that’d wash over him reminds Sasuke of—it reminds him of—it reminds him, and then he’d be afraid, because if what had happened _had actually happened_ , that makes Naruto being just as capable of the same thing.

So Sasuke’s scared of Naruto, and for the same reason he’s wary around the tall, lanky pale man by the name of Hatake Kakashi. Despite Naruto addressing him as _o-nii-chan_ , Sasuke isn't scared of Kakashi. Kakashi is an adult, and for that reason Sasuke doesn’t trust him in the first place.

When Sasuke finally decides to get a grasp of time, he calculates: he’d spent about two days in a hospital, and it’s been a week. This whole week he’s been wearing bright clothes made from thick cotton. Naruto’s, obviously, the only option aside from the hospital gowns.

At the end of the first week, Hokage-sama brings back his old clothes, and Sasuke finds himself in the kind-but-red-pink embrace hours later. His clothes are dark blue and bone white and sport the Uchiha fan. Sasuke couldn’t help the suffocating hiccups and tears when he first held them again; he can’t help them now, either, but it's not as bad.

Sasuke’s been skipping the Academy. Despite the times of day when Naruto’s attending his classes being the most peaceful—the sheer horror that it’s going to happen again any minute now the door won’t hold up and he’ll be back after him Naruto because he’s safe Itachi because he was always safe—

Sasuke can’t take the curious glances whenever Naruto’s home. Plus, Sasuke wants to _get out_ and _go back to normal_ , and on the eighth day, he packs his old bag with his new supplies and follows Naruto to the door.

The Hokage is wearing his aquamarine sweater that day. He freezes in the hallway, in the middle of pulling on his shoes, to slowly straighten up and look at him with an unnerving amount of emotion that Sasuke can’t even try and put a name on. “Sasuke-kun… Are you sure?”

Sasuke’s already dressed and has all what’s needed for today’s classes, so that’s one stupid question. He only humphs in response, but that’s enough to give Naruto a boost of untameable energy—he starts jumping and tugging Sasuke’s shirt—and the Hokage seems to take it as a confirmation as well.

“Well, you be careful then… you two.” He pats Naruto’s hair and vanishes into the thin air. Naruto and Sasuke exchange a look, but it’s not until Kushina-san speaks that Sasuke can put the awkwardness of the whole exchange.

“Forgot his whole shoe, dattebane…” she murmurs before sending them off.

Sasuke swears he’s fine. He’s been crying and losing sleep and short periods of time disappear from his memory, but he’s. He’s fine. He still excels in classes.

Four months later, when a nightmare makes him think he’s back in that hellish realm, Sasuke begins to suspect he’s not.

3

It starts small. Small thoughts, insignificant but treacherous, coming back all the time.

Sasuke’s just fine, except he can’t sleep at night. Who doesn’t, though? He can hear Naruto tip-toeing around the house at all hours of the night. He’s become so good at listening to him that he knows when Naruto’s going to use the bathroom, or going into his parents’ bedroom, or on his quest of finding snacks in the kitchen, or going to Sasuke’s room to stand outside the door in silence for a whole of five minutes before turning back.

Sasuke’s alright. He’s always been perceptive. That’s what his—his—that’s what has always been expected of him. Aware of every shift in the air. He’s going to be a shinobi. One of the best. He has to be aware, it’s a vital skill to hone. He only needs to learn to control—to channel this—to make sure it doesn’t become too much, the way it always does, now, when everything becomes fuzzy and sharp with static or loud and the only thing Sasuke wants is for his brain to shut off—

There’re many things like that, and when Sasuke puts them all together, they start drawing a pretty ugly picture. He can’t remember his existence being this uncomfortable before.

There isn’t anything to be done, though, and so Sasuke continues to exceed in his classes, and show Naruto off, and believing that he’s just fine.

After all, why wouldn’t he be? He’s been given a goal; a goal he plans to achieve. Focusing on the obstacles in his way isn’t going to help.

Besides, after Sasuke's started training with Naruto’s whole family, including Konoha’s jinchuuriki and the Hokage himself, Kakashi started showing him techniques for when things get too much. Who knew Namikaze Minato is such a dork on the training grounds? The only one keeping remotely serious during practice is Kakashi. Without anyone more suitable around, Sasuke latches onto him.

After all, Kakashi’s Minato’s student and a jounin since age ten. For what Sasuke has to achieve, this’ll do for the time being.

4

To no Naruto’s or Sasuke’s surprise, Kakashi is their jounin sensei.

“Wouldn’t this be like… uh… I don’t know,” Sasuke says once the news are made during the family dinner.

“That’s awesome, Kakashi-nii-san!” Naruto punches the air and nearly spills his soup. “We can finally go on missions together, we’ll be the greatest team of them all, like the Sannin but better—and not as old or, pervy—“ at the end of the tirade, he finally acknowledges Sasuke’s words. “Oh, you mean… Something to do with… Familiarity?” He trails off, and they share a look.

“You boys really need to read books more,” Kushina concludes after an amused silence. “Oh no, Kakashi, I see you’re thinking of a response, and I _refuse_ to have this family dinner be soured with a discussion of subordination among the shinobi ranks. I refuse. Minato, dear,” she turns to Minato-san with an angelic expression that promises retribution. She doesn’t even finish, but it has Minato gulping all the same.

“Y-yeah, of course! Some other time! You can discuss it aft _ertomorrow’sgraduation_ ,” he scrambles to finish before moving out of the way of Kushina’s blow.

Sasuke’s seen this a hundred times. Kushina never actually lands one, and it’s all for show. Still, he finds it—weird, because Kushina’s _strong_ , and treating her power so casually seems inappropriate to him. But maybe this is exactly what it looks like—both Hokage-sama and Kushina-san are powerful shinobi, and Kushina jokingly trying to swat Minato is a part of the dynamic, just as Minato easily dodging it is.

Still, it rubs him the wrong way, every time.

Kakashi must’ve noticed his reaction, Sasuke realises the next day.

5 ****

The next day, they’re waiting for Kakashi- _sensei_ to show up on the rooftop. Every other team of graduates has been ordered to stay in class and wait for their jounin sensei to pick them up, but it took Sasuke and Naruto exactly zero point five seconds to conclude that if they were to wait for Kakashi inside the Academy walls, they’d be there all day. Kakashi’s a wild free rover bird like that: it’s once in forever that he’d accidentally end up indoors, and most of the time he can be found perched on things.

There are a lot of things to perch on on the rooftop.

“Where are you guys going?” Sakura calls after them. She’s already risen to her feet, obviously not wanting to be left alone, but also reluctant to disobey a direct order. What’s she thinking? That if she misses the first meeting, she won’t be accepted as a genin?

“To meet Kakash-sensei, of course! He hates how stale and hot the air is here, he’ll never come inside!” Naruto explains, squinting and locking his hands behind his head in the most carefree way in the world. “C’mon, we’ll meet him on the rooftop!”

Sakura scrambles with the chair and her few supplies. “W-wait, you guys actually met him already?” There’s a tone of awe in her voice Sasuke doesn’t really like; he can’t make sense of this emotion.

“What do you mean, ‘met him already’, Kakashi-nii-san’s—“

Sasuke yanks his arm. “Later, Naruto.” This whole ordeal feels like they’re ruining the graduation for Sakura. She has such a bright, trembling light in her eyes at the prospect of meeting the jounin, Sasuke hates to think of it disappearing when she’ll actually see Kakashi. Or, at least, the side Kakashi lets most see.

If he shows the other, Sasuke’s pretty sure most graduates would be terrified, let alone one with a civilian background.

That’s how they end up choosing a nicer spot on the rooftop, Naruto idly chatting to fill the silence, when Kakashi finally decides to pop out.

“Yo!” he says, raising his index and middle finger in greeting. “My name is Hatake Kakashi, I’ll be your sense…”

“Cut the crap, old-man-hair-Kakashi, let’s hurry up so we can grab the most awesome mission before anyone else j—“

Sakura smacks Naruto atop his head. “Hey! Show some respect! This is our _sensei_ ,” she pronounces the last word with such shy admiration for the concept it stops Sasuke from biting through his lower lip. Kakashi studies Sasuke for a moment, before turning to the pink-haired girl.

She’d always done that in classes, Sasuke’s not sure why now things would’ve changed—

“As I said, I’ll be your jounin-sensei. I’m Hatake Kakashi… There’re things I like and things I hate… My dreams for the future… I have lots of hobbies,” he finishes with a shrug. Sasuke feels like he’s left out chunks of what he actually planned on saying, which isn’t to say Kakashi wanted to give out any information whatsoever. “I know you’re all familiar with each other… However, I’m not familiar with you,” he bows a little in Sakura’s direction. “Do you want to do some… self-introduction.”

“Oh, I—right! I’m Haruno Sakura. I like, well… I’m not sure. And my hobby is… I’ve been studying at the Academy, so I don’t really… And my dream for the future, I…”

It was a bad idea to ask her to go first, considering she’s also the only one going. Sasuke opens his mouth to start with an introduction of his own, except Kakashi beats him to it.

“Like you said, you’ve been studying hard to become a shinobi… Sakura, do you believe you’re too weak to cause significant damage to Naruto or Sasuke?”

If Sakura wasn’t blushing before, she’s certainly turning red now. “What? Sasuke? N-no, of course not, I mean no, I definitely can!” Must be the civilian background talking in her. She’s not trying to downplay her skills, but Sasuke’s seen her spar.

“Well then, you shouldn’t show aggression like that, even jokingly,” Kakashi says, nodding at Naruto. Kakashi has his arms crossed over his chest tightly, almost hugging himself, but he looks not a bit closed up.

“But tou-san and okaa-san…” begins Naruto.

“…Are war veterans,” Kakashi ends grimly. “Which doesn’t make it any better, but I’ll give them a slide,” he glances in Sasuke’s direction so briefly, Sasuke doubts it happened at all. “They’re two dorks, anyway,” he adds in a lighter note, clears his throat, and straightens up, arms on his hips. “Now, today was your graduation, but the final exam’s gonna be tomorrow. You can call it survival practice. Your opponent’s gonna be me. Training grounds Three, six o’clock sharp, don’t be late! And I recommend you don’t eat anything, either.”

With those words, he disappears.

At exactly eight-thirty in the morning, Sasuke exists his room, bumping into Naruto’s side while he rubs the sleep from his eyes.

“What time it is?” Naruto asks through a yawn, something he always does and Sasuke had always complained about until he became fluent in the language.

Sasuke shrugs, then looks at the watch on the wall, and at an obscenely happy Kakashi at the dinner table. It seems like one more drop of happiness or _whatever this is_ , Kakashi’d start humming, or maybe wagging his tail.

“You’re up early,” Saskue grumbles, climbing onto a chair.

“I didn’t sleep,” Kakashi chirps. Yeah, that makes sense. “Shouldn’t you be on the training grounds?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Naruto says sarcastically, leaning on one elbow and pointing an accusatory finger at Kakashi with the same hand he’s holding a huge orange juice box. At this moment, he looks more like an old, weary man at a bar rather than yesterday’s genin at a breakfast table.

“Oh, so I forget! Anyway, I’m sure no one else is waiting for us in the solitude of this sunny, chill morning…”

Sasuke’s never woken up faster in his entire life.

He’s pretty sure Naruto and him set the family’s personal record of covering half of Konoha without any amps, too.

“Sakura-chan! You’re here! I’m so sorry we’re late!—“ Naruto starts.

Sasuke can’t imagine speaking. He’s doubled over, gasping for breath, and damn—he certainly didn’t have time for breakfast, and it shows in the shortest fatigue in his limbs.

He can also feel Sakura’s—hurt or accusatory or both—gaze on him, so he stays like that, catching his breath. Kakashi, the bastard, is nowhere to be seen.

Maybe he’s had a clone watching Sakura all this time and plans on testing them again.

Sasuke’s surprised she’s waiting for them. He isn’t sure he wouldn’t have left after an hour of waiting.

“It’s been… _almost three hours!_ ”

“Kakashi-onii—I mean, uh, Ka—well, ugh—he’s late too!”

“He’s our sensei!”

“Which doesn’t really excuse him for being late,” Sasuke shrugs, finally straightening up. “I’m sorry, Sakura-chan… We all overslept.”

His words seem to have a bigger effect on her. Sasuke isn’t surprised; most girls at the Academy acted weird around him, even after it became common knowledge he was living under Naruto’s father’s, the Hokage’s, roof. So Sakura melts from the wind-blown chill a little, and her shoulders drop.

“I guess you did…”

“Guess we did what?”

Of course, now’s the time he shows up, appearing from a whirl of leaves. Still, this could’ve dragged out far longer, and Sasuke’s relieved it ends now.

“We?” Sakura blinks, blushing again. “Wait… You said, you said you _all_ overslept!” she points a single index finger at Sasuke and Naruto simultaneously, and Sasuke’s sure if he moved to the side, it’ll stay pointed at them both at the same time. _Weird_. “That means you, too!” she then points at Kakashi, who raises his hands in surrender.

“Now, now, that’s a pretty mean accusation…” he smiles wider. “…Since I didn’t sleep at all.”

Ignoring that, Sakura continues, calmer again. “What’s up with you three, anyway? You’ve been acting… _since yesterday_ … You know each other.”

6

Internally, Sakura berates herself for not connecting the two _very obvious, fat dots_ yesterday during introductions. Then again, she was pretty—disheveled. Stressed. And shy. Damn, just remembering that fumbling for words, she didn’t say _anything sensical at all…_

And now, those three stand before her. The way they are slotted sparsely together, somehow looking like a recognisable group, makes sense to her. Of course, Naruto and Sasuke are brothers, since they’ve been raised together.

It also shows, as strange it is to admit, that Kakashi-sensei’s the third sibling. A motley crew they are, but still, Sakura can’t help but call herself an idiot over this not clicking before.

“Kakashi-sensei, aren’t you that Hokage’s—“ _yes, call your sensei That One Hokage’s Student, what a way to make an impression—_

“Hokage-sama’s sole surviving student, that’s right,” he smiles the cheerful, squinting smile again, and his voice is normal. Sakura feels the normalcy’s there to shock her with the contrast, but it seems like Kakashi-sensei doesn’t realise he’s doing that.

Mom and dad have always told her dealing with _actual shinobi_ would be extremely difficult, but only now does Sakura realise why. This exchange with Kakashi-sensei—that’s why. For starters. She’s dreading just thinking what else might casually pop up.

“I see…” She bows her head, feeling the heat in her face. Now she’s the third wheel for sure. Sakura was hoping— Well, it doesn’t matter now, but she was hoping her new sensei’d see the team that Naruto and Sasuke already have, and work to include Sakura, if not with them then with himself. Now she knows that’s not happening.

Her limbs are tingling from the cold wind of the early morning. She was shaking at first from the cold, the nerves and the fact that she was here alone. Sakura even went back to the Academy to check she’s in the right place—but a small board by the entrance showed that her team’s meeting was supposed to take place at nine in the morning on the other side of the village, the time and location similar to the other teams.

She decided to go with the memory of sensei’s words rather than the note, and spent another hour regretting that decision until she actually vomited from the nerves. As Kakashi-sensei’d warned, she didn’t have anything for breakfast, so all that came up was bile.

“Well, I was—“ _I was thinking? Or maybe ‘Okay, then, let’s begin?' Kami, Haruno, there’s a sensei for a reason—_ Sakura bites her tongue.

Kakashi-sensei saves her from the moment. “Let’s go into the field, and I’ll tell you the rules.”


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in today’s chapter: familicide and suicide for fun&profit!
> 
> notes: ok so im strongly implying that itachi is sick with TB. there is no evidence of the naruto world having antibiotics, so i’m going with the next best idea of a cure that doesn’t involve resting&waiting for death. oleothorax was used as it helped collapse the lung and theoretically promote healing before the invention of a/b…. my grasp of this is as good as a medieval doctor’s, but i promise i tried to do my research.

1

He’s panting. The ringing of static is constant in his ears. Uchiha Itachi’s used to that—to the shortness of his breath, the deafening noises of his own body’s condition not being ideal.

He knows his body isn’t perfect. That’s the whole thing he’s trying to fix.

It’s another day on the outskirts of Amegakure. The air here’s heavy with fog, and the single day in the week that the rain clouds are cleared doesn’t help with the humidity.

That humidity’s what’s wrong with Itachi’s lungs. Drawing breaths is a constant labour, adding to the wheezing.

“You’re running a fever today, Itachi-san.”

His mind goes racing and comes to a halt. He knows he’s sick, and after this months’ travels he’s grown even worse, the whistling of his breathing a clear evidence of that.

“We still have some of the drugs left, Itachi-san…”

“That won’t work.” Itachi doesn’t want to interrupt his partner, Hoshigaki Kisame, but they’ve had this discussion a countless number of times. Bringing this up again is unnecessary. After all, it’s no other than Kisame who’s brought Itachi back from near death. Dragged him to the base, as little good as being here does for him. “Those two… are they back yet?”

“The Zombie Duo?” Kisame asks him, a short tone of amusement. “Should be by now, unless they got another tailed one. But we weren’t summoned yet.”

Itachi blinks. His eyelids are heavy, and the rain beating down his face is yet another obstacle in him opening his eyes again. What he sees is an infinite landscape of washed green and blue and grey. That’s all there is to Amegakure for the most part, and any finer details are lost on him.

“What do you want with them, anyway?” Kisame wonders.

“Had a deal with Kakuzu,” Itachi says. They’ve finally settled in on the details a few weeks ago. Now all he can do is wait.

Itachi has a big chunk of his family’s fortune in his savings still. What little he managed to scrap—before and after—it helped that his clan wasn’t too fond of Konoha’s politics to hold their money in its bank.

At this point of his sickness, Itachi concluded sometime in the previous months, he either spends all that money to survive, or dies to his body giving out on him. He made his choice. Kakuzu was only too happy to get his hands on the remaining Uchiha fortune.

But it wasn’t supposed to come to this.

2

It starts with the war.

The ground is covered by bodies, not a patch left unmarked. What little space is between them, all coloured red. The stench is hitting Itachi’s senses like nothing he’s experienced before.

“What’s the point of all this?”

A man dying of thirst begs for water. Itachi stands over him, gripping his flask, as the pleas grow louder.

They lock eyes.

Before the enemy shinobi can whip out his weapon, Itachi cuts him down with a kunai. The flask drops on the ground.

“Why did he attack me?”

Fugaku takes a step to stand beside him, his stern gaze overlooking the battlefield. The bodies on the ground end in a few dozen meters, but the destruction brought on by the shinobi techniques spans far over the horizon line, farther than Itachi can see.

“This man is the enemy, and he viewed you as such.”

“But I wasn’t fi—“

“It doesn’t matter. This war is not between people; it’s between nations, and you’re Uchiha Itachi of Konoha.”

After a few moments of silence, just as Itachi starts to think he can hear tormented grunts, otou-san continues. “They would’ve killed you just for being on the wrong side of the border. But given your clan—and your _eyes_ , Itachi.” Fugaku crouches to his level and takes him by the shoulder with a firm grip. “For your eyes, they’ll hunt you down far beyond the battlefield. You must always have your guard up.”

Itachi’s cousin and him had the same lessons drilled into their brains. Shisui keeps his guard up at all times, even around Itachi. The wall will barely start to crack only after they’ll have known each other for over a decade.

“What is it about our eyes, anyway?” he asks one day over lunch. He’s long graduated the Academy, but the blood eyes are yet to awaken.

“Sharingan, you mean?” Shisui asks, surprised. He almost drops his bento with rice chicken and colesaw. Itachi’s refused his, which sits in his lap now. “Don’t tell me otou-san didn’t tell you about the Sharingan…”

“Of course he did,” Itachi’s quick to correct him. He casts a careful glance around to make sure no one’s listening. “But there’s more than that, I know it…”

“More to it than… Than what, Itachi?”

“So you don’t know?”

“I don’-I don’t know if I do until you actually ask me!” Shisui sounds a bit exaggerated. He even pouts a little, before the expression vanishes with a smirk. “It’s a blood curse, the way I see it.”

The hairs on Itachi’s nape stand. He close to shivers, because—because this is what he wanted to hear. “Otou-san said… And I read… It’s locked to our bloodline, of course, but it doesn’t explain how exactly—“

Shisui puts his unfinished bento aside, carefully folding the chopsticks on top of it. The day isn’t a perfect one, and it’s been ruined further. “Our eyes tap into our emotions. The stronger we feel, the stronger are the eyes… Of course, pain and hatred, being one of the strongest emotions, make them more powerful. Not to mention it’s further forms—it’s a curse. We have to be cautious when using it.”

With that, Shisui’s eyes black eyes whirl into red. For a moment, the three tomoes sit in the iris, unmoving.

Itachi stares in awe. “That’s—“

“The Mangekyo Sharingan.” Shisui’s face is of two conflicted emotions. He bites his lip through a bitter smile, and his eyes glow crinkle. “I wish I never had it, Itachi, for the price it cost. But you know about that, so don’t ask again.”  
  
Itachi’s quick to nod. “But I know there’s more. Uchiha Madara—if the legends are true, there’s more…”

“Then don’t you know the cost already?” Shisui sighs and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Itachi. I’m going home early today; gotta get up as a lark for tomorrow’s mission.”

He collects all his belongings and takes his time straightening out his uniform. The protective vest is well-worn, with slashes across it and obvious wear around the neck and at the bottom. Itachi chews his lips but quickly scolds himself for the gesture. _He has to keep his guard up_.

Shisui leaves without another word.

3

Itachi stares at him with the eyes bigger than life.

Shisui knows the answers to most of his questions. Most of them are far too much to handle even for himself, and the weight of guilt is dragging him into despair by the minute. He walks towards his house and into the backyard, sitting cross-legged until the afternoon turns into midnight.

Every so often, he’d remember about the eyes and activate his Sharingan. The hurt of it sitting in his sockets is grounding. The small headache turns into something reminiscent of a migraine during the early evening, and Shisui snaps out of it later than that.

It’s hard, stopping from torturing himself, but he can’t bear any more guilt. With each activation of the Mangekyo, his eyes send a blinding white flash into his brain. The symptoms of the overuse he’s pulling himself through are similar to that of the deterioration; not able to tell which is which, Shisui stops as the sky becomes gilded with the setting sun.

The same day he’s awakened the Mangekyo, Shisui’d used it to test out the powers. _Kotoamatsukami_ turned out to be—unbeatable.

After casting it for the the first time, Shisui can’t use it still, and it’s been well over the year. Just activating the Sharingan tugs at a big chunk of his chakra reserve. Even when Shisui tried it for the second time, the Mangekyo genjutsu didn’t land. On top of that, he was bedridden for a week after from chakra exhaustion. All that chakra went right through his eye and, without finding the release, right back into Shisui’s head. The sensation was one of his skull splitting open from the technique ricocheting in his brain.

Now, Shisui waits until he can use it again. He didn’t have it during the war, though it could’ve ended it in one day.

That realisation alone has him spiralling. That power… too much to wield by a human hand. Knowing what it is capable of and being unable to act upon it—

Shisui doesn’t know if he can continue like that for much longer.

The war is over. Judging by the history books, Shisui gives the shinobi world another decade before the next starts.

Every time Shisui closes his eyes, he sees the battlefield littered with corpses, all Uchiha Fugaku’s work. Fugaku-sama’s eyes are blood-red in the wake of it.

Shisui’s power is too great to be left unchecked, he himself thinks so. The responsibility’s too heavy on his shoulders, and the price of using it—maybe once in a decade, as he’s sure now—is too much.

“There’re two more forbidden techniques,” Fugaku-sama’d taught him. “They defy destiny itself, but they’ll cost you your eye.”

Shisui has only used Kotoamatsukami once, and the effect on his eyesight is hard to ignore already. To think that he can break the rules of the world—

For the null cost of his eyesight—

 _Every single one of them can defy reality if they want_. Uchiha Fugaku, and Mikoto, and Itachi, _even the girl_ _Itachi’s been hanging out with_.

Kotoamatsukami isn’t back with her grace by the time Shisui turns fourteen. That leaves him with too much time too plan, though every time he does just so, the guilt close to swallows him whole.

Is there a way out of this?

Should the power that feeds on pain and hatred exists in the first place?

4

“Your Sharingan… is your eyesight any better?” he asks one day after practice. Their training showed hardly anything of significance today. Itachi’s pitch-perfect. Shisui’s keeping that assessment to himself, of course. One can never reach perfection—or so he thought until seeing Itachi’s progress, but just for the sake of finding out if there’ll be more to this, he won’t tell.

With the rate he’s going at, Uchiha Itachi’s be a legend during his lifetime.

“Not sure,” Itachi answers honestly after some consideration. “It was always good. Though my eyes hurt more, now…”  
  
“They always hurt?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says and then jumps. “Yours don’t?!”

Shisui has to swallow a laugh. “Mine hurt, too. From what I know, everyone’s Sharingan hurt. Even before they manifest.”

Itachi’s eyes darken, as does his face. Oh no. He’s going into that headspace again—thought way above his age or understanding, a sentiment all too familiar to Shisui. So he elbows him, and grins, and his tone’s way too amused when he asks: “So, that girl, Izumi. You guys dating yet?”

Despite all his field experience, Shisui’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen this shade of red until now.

5

Shisui turns sixteen today.

He opens his eyes to the sound of birds chirping somewhat worriedly, preparing for the harsher winter. He’s used to that, though—to the birds singing away in the spring, or the crickets almost deafening through the window in the summer, or to the sounds of feathered commotion now.

Something is different, though.

He studies his room, eyes fixing on the smallest details, and the answer comes to him.

Kotoamatsukami’s back.

The distance to the bathroom from his room is way too long, and Shisui collects every corner in the cramped house on his way there. He dry-heaves over the sink—the closest thing he could get to—but that’s all there’s to it. After a few minutes, the cramps in his stomach stop, and Shisui can finally look up into the mirror.

The black tomoe swirl into the form of a shuriken, and the beginning of his special genjutsu comes too easy. Shisui tears his gaze away before he can cast one on himself.

He’s not sure what was it that he wanted to turn into reality in his head. The thoughts were sharp back then, but they’re vague from the dread in his veins now. It doesn’t matter.

What matters now is him finishing his plan, fast, before the need arises to use his eye for something else, something less important.

6

The blood starts to pour, and it doesn’t really stop until Itachi’s hours away from Konoha. His eyesight is blurry from exhaustion and bloodloss. The huge gap in his torso—he simply has no other words for that mess—is something that forces him to stop eventually. Otherwise, Itachi isn’t sure he would’ve stopped, ever.

The euphoria of the kill is too much. The flashes of blood splatters, moonlight glistening off swords.

Sasuke.

He’d left Sasuke in his own pile of vomit and pool of their parents’ viscera. Itachi’s mind slows at the memory of it. He distinctly remembers seeing everything with crystal-like clarity—and then, after a split second of his usage of Tsukuyomi, the world turned into a blur.

It’s better now, so Itachi blames most of his vision’s fault on the adrenaline.

He plops on a thicker tree branch, unrolling the scroll with medical supplies and letting it swing easily from the branch in the night breeze. He wipes the blood, and covers the gash, and even tries healing himself—except his hands shake too much. From excitement or dread, he can’t tell.

What he can tell for sure though, is that he was not ready, and his bad timing nearly cost him his life yet again.

He breathes through his nose and chokes on a small cough that sends blooms of pain through his body.

Itachi will learn from his mistake; what matters now is that it’s all over.

7

Kakuzu waits them at the Akatsuki base with most his tools in a leather bag. Itachi nods at Kisame, whom he’s entrusted with the payment, though he hardly fears Kakuzu might want to betray him at the heart of their organisation.

“If you’re ready, I’d like to begin now.” With those words, Itachi finds himself lying on a steel table. It’s different from the ones used at the hospital—seems more… feral, civilian, with the implication that steel’s easier to clean up after blood.

Most medic nins use tables made from stone and wood for their techniques.

And this one is for cutting flesh.

“Tell me when you’re ready to begin.” Kakuzu has his cloak off. He’s wearing long white gloves and holds a scalpel in one hand. “Unless you wanted something to numb the pain first?”

Itachi’s shaking, something he can’t remember doing for this reason since the day he’d cut down his clan. The reason being: the thought of letting this man cut into his body scares him. But as on cue, the shaking from fear turns into one caused by fever and exhaustion from the coughing, and before Itachi can decide for himself, Kakuzu’s injecting him with a liquid that spreads like hot-cold-hot-cold-h _ot- co ldth r o u ghh is l im bs —_ -

“Took three hours,” Kakuzu says later, “though I _was_ doing a butcher’s job.”

“How bad was it?” speaking scrubs his throat raw, but that’s nothing compared to how the pain is his chest and the itch in his back.

“Pretty bad… most of the tissue was affected,” Kakuzu shrugs. He’s counting through Itachi’s—now his own—money like they’re discussing weather in Amegakure. “It’s pretty common, though. Seen it a bunch of times in dead civilians’ bodies.”  
  
Itachi looks down, letting his head drop a little. It’s too heavy, and he’s tired of holding it up. Kakuzu interpreters it his own way, however.

“C’mon. Doesn’t mean much, except that you’re lucky to be breathing now. Still, you weren’t half-dead before the surgery, that makes your chances…” He shakes the banknotes he’s recounting now. “…Moderate.”

“Moderate… low or high?”

“I ain’t sure. I’ve never done this before, which you know already.”  
  
A hefty sum for a wild maniac’s experiment.

“But don’t worry; medical ninja can’t cure this, so the shinobi world mostly gives up on the likes of you. However, civilians came up with an idea of how this works,” Kakuzu points at Itachi’s chest. “Can you feel it?”  
  
There is certainly something under his ribs. He gasps, letting his chakra course through the closest pathways around the object—

“It’s there to collapse part of you lung to promote healing through rest… Theoretically.”  
  
“ _Theoretically_.”  
  
“There are cases of this working. There’re also cases where it didn’t. I recommend you follow up with the old-fashioned cure: drag yourself and your partner somewhere hot and dry. Land of Wind or the like. I’d recommend no physical exertion, but you know why we’re all here, Itachi-san.”

8

The topic of the conversation they’re having is something Shisui and Itachi have discussed before. Shisui reckons it has started during the war, when Itachi would ask him “Will the war be any longer?” and marvel at the spin of his tomoe.

The topic has evolved, of course, from Shisui trying to avoid the gory details to spilling out most of his fears.

He’s never admitted to the fear of his own power until today, though.

“You still can’t use it, then?” Itachi asks, staring over the edge of the cliff and into the Nara forest. Crossing the river would be interloping into the Nara’s clan territory. This spot is an isolated one because of the long drop and the lack of any bridges, and the way here isn’t the easiest for the non-shinobi population. And so, the spot is frequented by the two of them.

Shisui sighs, shaking his head in a ‘no’. The lie comes easier than he’d imagined it; Kotoamatsukami has been awake for nearly two months, now. The passage of these two months Shisui has been painfully aware of. Each passing day increased the risk of—he’s not sure himself, he could never rationalise himself out of the looming dread of a _disaster_. With the eyes like theirs, a single wrong decision can cascade into something unstoppable.

“Seeing your otou-san on the battlefield…” He begins after it’s made clear that Itachi believes his reply. There’s a disappointed line in his face. He guesses he’d normally miss that, if not for the heavy topic. “I think I’m scared of my own.” He gestures vaguely at his face, his eyes. “You think, Itachi, if you ever awaken your Mangekyo… Do you believe you’ll know when to use it? To only use it for the good of everyone?”

Sharp eyes like his own find his gaze; a reflection of the starry night dances in them. 

“You think you’ll use your eyes for evil,” Itachi tells him.

“I…” _I’ve promised myself I won’t_.

Shisui reaches for a hug. He’s decided this just hours ago—finally accepted the only way out he could see. Itachi responds, his lean-muscled arms wrapping around his shoulders.

The pinwheels of two Mangekyo come to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not happy with how this chapter turned out, but i'd rather post it now than never. hope u enjoy. please let me know what you think:)


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